“After processing they released me and police said that they would send a court subpoena later,” – shares an activist from Baranavičy. Piotr Ruzau was charged with deliberate destruction of property. Earlier this year he was warned with expulsion from university for his anti-corruption graffiti.
Signs with demands to release a political prisoner Mikalai Autukhovich led to an arrest of one more youth activist in Asipovičy on 10 May. Police wrote a report on Artsiom Dubski charging him with minor public misdemeanour.
Tatiana Kasinchuk, activist’s Ukrainian colleague, was a witness of his arrest. “Every other wall in Kyiv or Rivno, where I live, is painted and has graffiti on it. And nobody has any problems with it,” – she remarks in surprise.
Municipal workers usually paint over anti-governmental and pro-opposition graffiti the day after they appear on walls. Belarusian authorities attracted attention of world media for its war on graffiti in 1998. Back then a criminal case was started against Vadzim Labkovich, 16, and Aliaksei Shydlouski, 18. Teenagers wrote slogans “Long live Belarus!” and “Dzerzhinsky is butcher” on statues of Lenin and Dzerzhinsky, a KGB founder, respectively.
